adventures, of poetical perplexities, or of picturesque difficulties.
No beauties of this kind will be here found. I propose to give a plain,
unaffected narrative of the exertions made by a family of young persons,
to render themselves and each other happy and useful in the world. The
circumstances in which they are placed are so common, that we see
persons similarly situated every day: they meet with no adventures, and
their difficulties, and the remedies they procure for them, are of so
homely a description, as to exclude every exertion of poetical talent in
their illustration, and to promise to excite interest in those readers
only, who can sympathise with the earnest desires of well-disposed and
industrious young persons striving after usefulness, honourable
independence, and individual and mutual improvement, amidst real, and
not imaginary, discouragements, and substantial, not sentimental,
difficulties. I proceed at once to my narrative.

Mr Forsyth was a merchant, who lived in the city of Exeter. He had
been a widower for a few years, and had endeavoured to discharge
faithfully a parent's duty to five young children, when he too was taken
away from those who depended upon him, and whose very existence seemed
bound up in his. He was taken from them, and no one knew what would
become of these young helpless creatures, who, it was thought, would
inherit from their father nothing but his good name, and who possessed
nothing but the good principles and industrious habits which his care
and affection had imparted to them. They had no near relations, and the
friends whom their parents' respectability had gained for them, had
families of their own to support, and could offer little but advice and
friendly offices: large pecuniary assistance they had it not in their
power to impart. One of these friends, who was also Mr Forsyth's
executor, took the children into his house till the funeral should be
over, and some plans arranged for the future disposal of each of them.

The eldest girl, Jane, was of an age to understand and feel the
difficulties which surrounded them. She was sixteen, and from having
been her father's _friend_ as well as housekeeper, she had a remarkably
matured judgment; she was of a thoughtful, perhaps an anxious,
disposition, and the loss of her father, together with the anxiety she
felt as being now the head of his helpless family, were almost too much
for her. Though she was supported by her